THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE TEXAS GOVERNOR; Taking Up Where Debate Left Off, Bush Assails Gore on Spending

Gov. George W. Bush rode out of the first presidential debate today accusing Vice President Al Gore of being ''the biggest spender we've seen in decades'' while defending his own $1.3 trillion tax cut against Mr. Gore's assertion that it favors the very wealthy.

Mr. Bush drew pointed contrasts between his view of government and those of his opponent, first in Boston, where he accepted the endorsement of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, and then at a boisterous rally at West Chester University here outside of Philadelphia. He accused Mr. Gore of turning his back on President Clinton's own pronouncement in 1996 that the ''era of big government'' had ended.

''Believe it or not, he's proposed three times more spending in this campaign than President Bill Clinton did,'' Mr. Bush proclaimed to a pompom waving crowd that filled the university's field house. ''That's an amazing achievement.''

''It's the biggest proposal for the biggest expansion of the federal government since Lyndon Baines Johnson came along,'' Mr. Bush said. ''It's going to expand and or increase 200 government programs that require thousands of new bureaucrats.''

With the presidential race considered a dead heat, both campaigns jockeyed hard for advantage the day after the 90-minute nationally televised debate. Mr. Bush's aides raised new questions about Mr. Gore's character, while the Gore campaign drew Mr. Bush into a sparring match over just how much his tax plan would favor the rich.

First thing this morning, Mr. Bush's aides disputed the vice president's assertion during the debate that he had toured Texas fire scenes with James Lee Witt, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Mr. Gore was forced to backtrack in an appearance on ABC's ''Good Morning America.''

''Well, I was there in Texas,'' he said. ''I think James Lee went to the same, went to the same fires. And I've made so many trips with James Lee to these disaster sites. I was there in Texas, in Houston, with the head of the Texas emergency management folks and with the federal emergency management folks. If James Lee was there before or after, then, you know, I got that wrong then.''

Karen P. Hughes, Mr. Bush's communications director, said Mr. Gore had a shown a pattern of ''embellishment'' that could haunt him in the White House. ''In a meeting with a foreign leader, the president of the United States is representing our country,'' she said. ''The credibility of our country is on the line and the president of the United States in front of a world leader can't just make things up.''

Kym Spell, a spokeswoman for the vice president said that Mr. Gore had been with Buddy Young, the regional head of FEMA in 1998, not Mr. Witt. She said that Mr. Bush and his aides were making ''personal attacks'' instead of ''talking about how to explain his tax cut.''

Time and again Tuesday night, Mr. Gore accused Mr. Bush of a fiscal plan that ''spends more money for tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent'' than he does in new proposals for ''health care, prescription drugs, education and national defense all combined.''

Mr. Bush, with increasing detail as the day went on, acknowledged today that the wealthy did benefit under his plan, just like other Americans, but said it was not as much as Mr. Gore had asserted.

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Mr. Bush said that his tax cut would drop the top income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent because ''we don't believe the federal government should take more than a third of anybody's check in federal income taxes.'' He said that rate cut accounted for $149 billion or 11 percent of his tax-relief package.

That figure, Mr. Bush said, was ''far less than the claims'' Mr. Gore made on television.

As the college crowd chanted ''No fuzzy math,'' turning one of Mr. Bush's debate lines into a new political slogan, Mr. Bush reminded the audience of Mr. Gore's often mocked statement about the Internet.

''He's invented a new calculator,'' Mr. Bush said. ''It's a calculator where you put real numbers in and it comes out with political numbers.''

Ms. Hughes said the campaign calculated that the top one percent of income taxpayers would get about 20 percent of the portion of Mr. Bush's tax cut that results from a reduction in income tax rates, or $223 billion in tax reductions across 10 years.

The Gore campaign shot back with conflicting figures of its own based on calculations by Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal research group, that 42.6 percent of Mr. Bush's tax cuts, when fully phased in, would go to the wealthiest one percent of households. That would amount to about $561 billion of the tax cut, Mr. Gore's aides said, and exceed the $474.6 billion in additional spending Mr. Bush calls for in the areas of national defense, health care, education, Medicare and other domestic programs in his fiscal plan.

One of the reasons for the different numbers lies in the repeal of the tax on large estates valued at $675,000 or more, which Mr. Bush has also proposed as part of his tax cut plan.

His calculations regarding the top 1 percent of taxpayers focus only on the change in income tax rates, and do not factor in changes in estate tax law.

Bush aides, citing Congress's Joint Committees on Taxation, argue that the estate tax repeal would help an array of taxpayers, like those who inherit small family businesses, and does not just benefit the wealthiest.

Mr. Gore's aides pointed to a report by a liberal study group, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, that said the repeal would apply to the wealthiest 2 percent of people who died and left behind large estates.

Mr. Bush also sought to frame his tax proposals as emblematic of the different views he and his opponent have of government. ''He wants the federal government in our lives,'' Mr. Bush said in Boston. ''He wants the federal government making decisions on behalf of ordinary citizens. What I want to do is have a limited federal government.''

He also said it was inevitable that wealthy people would benefit from a broad tax cut like the one he proposed. ''I think what people have got to understand is wealthy people pay a lot of taxes and if everybody gets tax relief wealthy people can get tax relief,'' he said in the interview on ''Good Morning America.''

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A version of this article appears in print on October 5, 2000, on Page A00030 of the National edition with the headline: THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE TEXAS GOVERNOR; Taking Up Where Debate Left Off, Bush Assails Gore on Spending. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe